Ok, we have had a very very nice reply from David Gaider who was the senior writer for KotOR I at Biowar, he is still with Biowar and is a Designer for the company and working on new projects. He tells us that the models and the dialog files for KOTR I are sadly not available due to changes in file configurations half way through the project, and the company moving, BUT he said that he very willing to share what is in his head, i.e. memory about the game and details of the plot that were left out or put in. This is a remarkable offer and wonderful opportunity. I will post his reply in detail once he gives me permission to share it but I wanted to let you all know that we have this chance to ask questions that there may be no other answers for. I would hope that he would not be deluged with tons of mail but it appears he realy is willing to help us with questions on the game and the storyline. That is very nice indeed and I wrote immediately to thank him and to let him know I would pass his offer on to all of you.

Let me know if you want me to pass on questions or if you want to send them directly to him, and I asked him too how he wants to handle this, and hopefully we can enjoy this unique opportunity to solve puzzles and riddles that remain from the files and the lost areas. Great news and nice to be able to pass on.

The last line of his post says:

"...I'd be willing to answer any questions you had, about Sleheyron or KotOR in general. Nice to see that there's still some fans out there interested in the project. It was a lot of fun to work on."

As an example of the depth and insights he can share with us are quotes from posts he made back in 2003 in response to questions about the plot, from the Biowar Forum archives, found by Dan Loto....

Quote: Did any of you have a character that did not make it in the game that you really wished would have?
Well, Sleheyron (the one planet that was cut) was mostly written when it was cut and I had written it, and there was a series of Hutts there that you could take jobs with. They were all enemies of each other and you could play them off each other. it was kinda cool. One of them was named Suuda the Hutt and I liked him a lot, he was very catty.

And, no, before anyone asks it is not in a state that it can be restored. I think the dialogue I wrote back then was even in a different format, so it is not salvageable.
_________________
Posted: Tuesday, 04 November 2003 08:00AM
Quote: Posted 11/03/03 18:06:50 (GMT) by Grant Dempsey
Would you mind describing what Sleheyron was going to be like a bit more? A planet inhabited by several Hutts, all in opposition toward one another, sounds very interesting. Plus, judging from other characters' dialogue about Sleheyron, it seems like an interesting place on its own. I'd love to read about what sort of areas, NPCs,--(Hutts and otherwise)--and Quests could've been found there.

Well, as I recall Sleheyron was one of those over-industrialized planets within Hutt space. Sort of like Taris with all the large buildings... but much more drab and ugly, with everything in hues of orange and brown. Seleheyron was intended to be the place where you visited the seedy underbelly of civilization: here you engaged in smuggling and other illegal activities for various Huttese gangsters and either took part in or bet on the infamous gladiator matches.

Like I said above, you could work for various Hutts... you didn't meet them, but rather worked for their intermediaries (like how Bib is Jabba's go-between). I think there was four... I only remember the names of two, though: Moosh and Suuda.

Each of the Hutts had a few things you could do for them. The really extensive one was Suuda, who was involved in a cross-planet smuggling plot (which is too bad that it got cut, really) which ended in an assassination plot... you get admitted to Suuda's presence and can either try to carry through with the plot to kill Suuda or uncover it and get rewarded by him.

As I recall, I think you could enter the gladiator tournaments under one of two Hutts. That was kind of interesting... there were five other teams of three gladiators and the matches got assigned ahead of time. You could check which team you were up against and sometimes you had the option to work the other team over... romance their captain and get them to throw the fight, poison one of them, make a deal to get them out of slavery, etc. Otherwise you were in one of four types of matches... the plans for those I remember being pretty cool and each match type focused on one style, like one was a labyrinth, one involved pure combat, stuff like that.

Hmmm. I remember that one of the Hutts had an estate you could infiltrate. Can't remember exactly what happened there, though. I do recall that there was a cantina where you met up with a couple of servants belonging to that Hutt and you could romance the key out of them (as one way of getting in).

At any rate, this all sounds like it was done but it really wasn't. Much of the dialogue and planning had been written, and some of the area modelling, but that's it. I'm not sure how we would have done all the gladiator games stuff at all. Probably best that the planet was cut overall... it was too complex considering all the stuff we had in KotOR already.

I wrote Yuthura after Sleheyron was cut. That's why I mentioned it in her dialogue.

Posted: Wednesday, 05 November 2003 11:48AM
Quote: Posted 11/05/03 08:41:00 (GMT) by Bastila the Hun
Maybe you shouldn't have let us know how great the game could have been

To be honest, there's usually a big difference between the initial plan and where something ends up. Like I said, this was still really early in the game's development when Sleheyron was cut. Especially considering that it was so complex, there'd likely be a big difference between the planned Sleheyron that you're hearing about and how it would have turned out after months of cutting, scripting and tweaking (I ended up re-writing Korriban twice during development and it had to make major changes from its initial vision in order to get it "right"... Sleheyron would have been no different.)

And, incidentally, I really doubt Yuthura would have ever appeared on Sleheyron. The only reason I had her mention the planet was because it had been cut.

There is no Chaos, There is Harmony.
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Who the Hutts on Sleheyron were siding with (the Sith or the Republic.)

Any information on Sleheyron would be helpful really.

Quote:

20. A trash compactor puzzle in the Taris Sewers.

That's not much information and I doubt he remembers such a small detail.

Quote:

21. A quest that would have allowed the player to become a sort of Messiah of the Sandpeople and lead them against their Czerka corporation oppressors.

Information on this could be helpful.

Quote:

22. A Gammorean stronghold in the Undercity

*cough*

Quote:

46. A Czerka depot could've been found on Korriban along with a quest involving the president of Czerka operations on Korriban. {There was evidently quite a bit of Czerka content originally planned for Korriban}

Perhaps what the story is around this.

Quote:

53. The player could go back to Dantooine after escaping the Leviathan.

I suppose you could also ask about the original Dantooine landing pad.

Quote:

Extra shadowland level.

More might have been cut than we know.

Quote:

and why the free roam camera cheat is on the Xbox version but not the PC version.

(I doubt he remembers this...)

I also recommend that CrisG is the only one who messages him. It will be the most efficient and cut down on spam.

I almost forgot the Tatooine Temple...you could ask about the Sarlacc/Starmap/Creatures in the cave.

OK thanks Darth Balor, let's continue here for just a bit before we move this thread over to there and keep the questions for David here as most people will come here in the immediate future, i will wait to see how we feel about the best way to get the questins to him, and gather the questions up and post them here first before passing them on to him, so we can get it very clear. It is an exciting thing to have this chance and i want it to be as smooth as we can make it. And easy for him. It is VERY good news that he is free to talk with us openly about the plot line and is not hindered by NDA or other restrictions.

Thanks again Darth B for the forum area for our restoration work and I really really appreciate you doing that, and I am sure we will move over there soonest, I just wanted to keep this thread going a bit longer as people will be checking in here and it will be a good nexus until we find our way for the next steps. This is really wonderful movment in a positive direction, and great to see. thanks to all.

What I suggest of everyone is comfortable me passing on the questions to David, and bringing back his replies that I do it weekly, and will post the questoins current in a post here, and then will put in his replies if and when they come, and we can duplicate this into the restoration forum that Darth Balor has so kindly created for us at the Team Exile site too. This will keep the pipeline to David clear and simple, and make it easiest for him IMHO.

There is no Chaos, There is Harmony.
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Magnus what technical points do you need to know about....i think he may be able to find out if we can ask specfic things, my sense is that he is willing to help us, and will also he will be totaly and openly honest when he can't which I very much respect. My suggestion is that we send questions on Fridays, as that gives him time to think things over and reply when he has comfortable time.

There is no Chaos, There is Harmony.
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Danyael, what specifically about Quanon's remarkable work do you want me to share with David?

I will collect all the questions we have come up with by Thursday and formulate a list, and post that in its own topic here and on the forum that Darth Balor has so kindly created for us, as a Q and A and then if and when we get replies to specific things I will post them with each question to keep it streamlined if that seems ok with everyone. Pls be as specific as you can about your questions as it was some years ago for him workng on the game, and remember too you all know this matieral much better than I and I need your details to pass on your questions correctly. I will be sure to post al the questions on Thursday for your review to be sure i get them right.

There is no Chaos, There is Harmony.
----------------------------------------------------Admin 3D Worlds and Game Developers Group - Linkedin - "We Build Worlds"DF-JK DF2-DFMOTS-JKII-JKIII-KoTOR I-KoTOR II - XW-TF-XvT-BOP -XWA-Rogue Squad - Starfigher-Racer- RC-Battle for Naboo-Episode I Phantom Menace-Shadows of the Empire-BF I - BF II-EAW-EAW:FOC-Loom-Grim F-MI-MII-MIII-DOTT-IJFOA-IJLC-IJET-IJIM-Dig-Sam and Max HTR

yes, and the person who proposed the question be asked is the same person as the one restoring it. He wants to know what was intended for that area.

And now I'm going to shut up. Remind me to talk less.

I suppose its not possible for him to release the tools that Bioware used to design the modules in the first place? Valve actually did that with Half Life 2; they released Hammer and allowed users to create maps for Half Life 2 and its offspring.

Quote:

47. A sound file exists that involves Carth teaching you how to use a droid that was supposed to allow you transit between the Taris City levels.

Would this be hard to restore? Obviously you could only use it once you'd been to all three of the levels (and got the appropriate papers)...Kinda like the terminals in Telos. In fact, exactly like the terminals in Telos.

Hang on, I just thought of something. If you got the Sith uniform, went into the Lower Levels, traded your uniform for the papers, can you get back up to the Upper Levels? And if so, does that mean that you can use the papers to get back down again? If so, then this should become available as soon as you've traveled to the Undercity.

Assuming that you can use the papers to travel freely through the levels, can it be done?

Oh and one more thing. a lot of content in the list above is mentioned, but it would be useful if people could add the names of the relevant files concerning the content, so that people could work out how viable a restoration is.

"We must use daring, daring and more daring." - Georges Jacques Danton

Magnus what technical points do you need to know about....i think he may be able to find out if we can ask specfic things, my sense is that he is willing to help us, and will also he will be totaly and openly honest when he can't which I very much respect. My suggestion is that we send questions on Fridays, as that gives him time to think things over and reply when he has comfortable time.

I was thinking about things like a list of controllers used in emitters along with their associated numerical values, just as an example.... or the meaning of the field which can take the values of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 in the AABB node structure. Basically I'd need a little help in bridging the gap between the NWN formats (most of which have been made public by Bioware) and the Kotor ones. It would certainly help me a lot in rounding out KAurora. I can compile a small list of questions, but maybe it's better to first ask if these questions are acceptable in the first place.

MagnusII, my gut feeling is that we can and should be as detailed at the outset as you can be, so he can give us guidelines on what he can help us with. He seems very candid and willing to be open about the development, and he will certainly tell us what he can and can't share, so if you could do a short list of detailed questions, I think this is the time to ask them.....but I will follow your lead on this however you want to do it. Loony has asked about asking them if they can release their level making tools, so this might fit with that and help David know what would help us the most. We will include a note to him that Quanon's new Totally New Temple Module also.

There is no Chaos, There is Harmony.
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I'll just post my questions here about the level editing itself.
That's my main interest ofcourse, I just hope he can share some hints
or just a tip.

Though I fear we might be asking the wrong guy about this kind of stuff.
Still its great he's doing this !

So here it goes :

Man, what to ask? I'm rather speechless...

But I have small list :

- How narrow can a corridor be made, 2 m ~ 3 m for party members to follow fluently ?

- How does the WalkMesh block off the camera and line-of-sight of party members and enemys ?

- Is there a way to create more "effects" for the textures ? Like the metal shine ( CM_BareMetal), I've found this has a TGA , is there a way to make the game accept new TGA for those kind of effects ?

- And how to approach the lightmaps ?

- For now only the Mesh , created for the walkable area accepts multi/sub-object material from 3D-Max.
How do I get the ohter Mesh objects to use this aswell ? Else I can only use like 20 textures...

I will organize the questions by topic, story items first, as that is his speciality then technical and mod questions: so pls post any questions you might have, whatever they are...and we will give him a nice list. I will gather them all up tomorrow and open a new Q and A topic here in Holowan Lab and you can all check and make sure i get it right before i send it to him Friday.

There is no Chaos, There is Harmony.
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Superb, that is exactly what I had hoped you would give us to share with David, it will show him several things, including that we, or specifically those of us, including you and others who are willing and capable, are working hard to understand the game to be able to mod it accurately and to maintain the high level of the game quality, and that we and again those of you who are doing it, are self starters and work hard at this, and any help will be much much appreciated. I think this is honestly one of the remarkable things about this community and the way the game inspires people and a fine reflection of the effort that went into it with people like David and the rest of the devel team, David may be able to pass on some of the technical questions to Lead Tools Programmer Don Moar and the other Tools Programmers Owen Borstad, Timothy Smith, Kris Tan, Sydney Tang, or to the Graphics Programmers John Bible, Patrick Chan, Peter Woytiuk, we can hope and this will be a chance to show what we are interested in and working on and with. I will do a sweep tomorrow for the questions and get them formated for you all to review.

Darth333 has offered us a chance to share our conversation with David on SWK, which might be a nice thing to do if that seems right to all of you.....and she shared a link to a recent inverview with Chris Avellone Lead Designer for TSL and Emperor Devon and Pavlos did, that was published over there at SWK, it shows interesting insights on the viewpoint of the game development decisoins and helped me consider how and what to ask David on our behalf too, you all might enjoy seeing this if you havent yet...

If I could pose a question, I'd like to know what the left-over Czerka-style sequence of rooms, which I named a missing area of Korriban, were originally for...? They appear in the earliest of the trailers on youtube, IIRC...it's been removed, but it looked like a very early, pre-release trailer.

Actually, if we could get to know what was meant to go on in the cut Shadowlands level, the rough information of what was going on in the Tatooine temple (something more than just the Sarlacc...), and why there's a second Tatooine swoop track, that would all be pretty interesting to know.

OK, Darth, I will put those on the list today, and post it later for review before sending to David. thanks.

Edit: OK, here is the thread with the first (hopefully) round of questions for David Gaider, pls review it if you put in a question or two or three, and make sure I got it worded rright, and let me know any corrections, additions, emendations, etc.....I hope i got the meaning and intent of everyone's querries correctly. I will send it to Daivd mid day tomorrow. thankshttp://www.lucasforums.com/showthrea...17#post2417917

Edit 2: UPDATE: Thursday Jan 31
I received another note from David Gaider and he has given us more details already, i will delay until late Friday to send over our list of questions in case anyone wants to edit or change their questions based on what he shares here....he has given me permision to share both his notes to me with you all, so here they are:

I wish I could help you out more regarding Sleheyron -- whatever notes I had on that particular level have been lost in the intervening years, which is not too surprising considering we've moved buildings since then and I've upgraded my work computer at least twice.

Dialogue was written for the planet, as I recall, but even if I could find those dialogue files in some archive I wouldn't have any way of accessing them. Even half-way through the project's development we switched dialogue formats -- and that meant old dialogue files could no longer be read. I'd need something that could read that old format, which just isn't going to happen.

There was an alpha version of the artwork done, too -- but again even if the model work could be found, I'm not sure it would be in a state to turn over to anyone. As I recall, textures were temporary and there was a problem with the scaling, and then it's likely the entire thing was dumped when the planet was cut.

SO... that means that whatever existed of Sleheyron is pretty much just in my head nowadays.

I'd be willing to answer any questions you had, about Sleheyron or KotOR in general. Nice to see that there's still some fans out there interested in the project. It was a lot of fun to work on.
_________________
Jayne: "Do you know what the chain of command is here? It's the chain I go get and beat you with to show you who's in command."

Quote: Sent 01/29/08 17:59 (GMT) by CrisG99
I will pass on your reply if that is ok, to the community, and we will see what they want to know
Sounds fine to me, sure.

Quote: for instance there was a third level for the Black Vulkar Base on Taris (that by the way is an amazing level, very beautifully done)....a third level that existed almost complete in the game files and skilled community members restored it with full access already.
Really? Interesting. I was not involved much in the Taris levels, myself, outside of writing some dialogue for Carth and Bastila. Most of Taris was made by Drew Karpyshyn.

In fact, there were four writers who worked as the leads for various characters and planets. We overlapped some, but I'd say that these people know the most about their respective bailiwicks. My memory is not 100%, but as I recall the breakdown was something like this:

Me: Korriban as well as Carth, Bastila, HK-47 and Jolee Bindo -- I did the initial design on Tatooine, before it was handed off to Luke, so I know a fair amount of what went on there as well.

Drew Karpyshyn: Taris, Dantooine, end levels as well as Mission

Luke Kristjansson: Kashyyk and Zaalbar

Peter Thomas: Manaan, Unknown World as well as Canderous and Juhani

Quote: additional office space for Czerka Corp on Korriban that people are looking at
I remember the Czerka office on Korriban, though as I recall there wasn't a great deal going on there. It was primarily going to be a store, and if I recall there were some plans for Czerka to give you a quest to get them some artifacts from the dig underneath the nose of the Sith -- but only if you had sided with Czerka on Tatooine (which was a big Tatooine plot that was cut, involving the Sand People fighting against Czerka, but after that was cut so was this).

If I were to name the three biggest things that were cut out of the original plan, it'd be these:

1) Sleheyron (without a doubt, considering that most of the dialogue had even been written -- it was enjoyable, but the problem was mainly that it was easily the most complicated planet to implement so it was a hard decision to be the one we had to lose. One of the toughest parts of losing Sleheyron was that it also meant cutting the string of cross-planet smuggling quests that you could get into if you chose to start working for Suuda the Hutt.)

2) The Sand People rebellion on Tatooine (which included the sub-plot of whether or not you wanted to help free the Jawa from the Sand People and whether or not you would help the Sand People fight against the Czerka miners -- or help Czerka wipe out the Sand People.)

3) The Korriban crypt areas were originally much more extensive, and at one point there was a plan for a larger underground complex. These mostly got kiboshed when a lack of time meant that the crypts had to be turned into what were essentially single-room dungeons.

These are the things I knew about, anyhow. It might seem surprising, but from my experience these sorts of cuts happen all the time -- and for the most part it was always a good thing because it freed up time to spend polishing other parts of the game. One of the worst things a developer can do, I think, is become so enraptured with their own design that they refuse to examine which parts are actually necessary and feasible to accomplish in the time you have available. It's nice to imagine that Sleheyron and all the rest could have been included and be as polished and cool as the rest of the areas we made -- but that's just not how it works.

Quote: I will ask for a detailed question list and pass it on to you soon, and thanks again for being willing to help us with this, it is VERY nice of you indeed.
No problem.
_________________
Jayne: "Do you know what the chain of command is here? It's the chain I go get and beat you with to show you who's in command."

There is no Chaos, There is Harmony.
----------------------------------------------------Admin 3D Worlds and Game Developers Group - Linkedin - "We Build Worlds"DF-JK DF2-DFMOTS-JKII-JKIII-KoTOR I-KoTOR II - XW-TF-XvT-BOP -XWA-Rogue Squad - Starfigher-Racer- RC-Battle for Naboo-Episode I Phantom Menace-Shadows of the Empire-BF I - BF II-EAW-EAW:FOC-Loom-Grim F-MI-MII-MIII-DOTT-IJFOA-IJLC-IJET-IJIM-Dig-Sam and Max HTR

By looking at Tar_m03aa_S in kotor tool it looks like there's a lot of dialog in the lower city that wasn't used.

If you look at some of the dialog for Tar_m03aa (Taris Lower City) it looks like that the swoop track was originally accessible from there. An example would be in this piece of a Sith Troopers dialog.

"This area is off limits because of the riot after the last race! You Tarisians couldn't handle crowd control, so we're shutting down the swoop track. Just move along!"

And a janitor.

"Gotta sweep and clean. Gotta have this place sparkly-shiny for when the crowds show up."

There's a bit more but those lines some it up. I think if there was an entrance to the swoop track it would be somewhere between the elevator to the Undercity and the door to the apartment circle where the short scene with Canderous happens.

I found quite a lot more on this with Mindtwistah's Armband. They they a picture's worth a thousand words so here's six pictures!

I'll start off with the minimap. The white boxes are where I found "swoop tracks"